


For The Bonds Between Us

by Jairephix



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: BLUPJEANS BABY, mentions of Ango's grandpa, mentions of various characters - Freeform, most of the characters are a small part rather than a major one, tags updated as i go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-23 16:08:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13791276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jairephix/pseuds/Jairephix
Summary: Taako can't remember why he's taking care of this kid, but he knows one thing.He's family.----UPDATE:Discontinued, sorry folks. I lost the drive I had on this and can't get it back.





	1. Prologue

Taako didn’t know why he was raising him, but his earliest memory about this kid was looking down at the baby in his arms and knowing this was family. And as far as the elf knew, he had no one else that wanted him around.

He promised, out loud and feeling a little silly for saying it to a baby, that he’d try to not fuck this up too.

It had been an awkward 4 years, trying to balance the show itself, all the branding, the working relationship with Sazed, and a small child. At least now, Angus was old enough to entertain himself with oversized books while the show went on. But this?

This was the worst damn thing that could happen.

Glamour Springs was supposed to be the show that would kick off the next part of his plan, the part where he could move around less, make some place he could settle down and work from, maybe open a combination restaurant and school. Maybe a tour every now and again. Give Angus a proper upbringing. Taako wanted to do something right by this kid, something that he didn’t get.

And now, he watched as the crowd who had sampled his dish, his signature 30 clove chicken, crumple to the ground like paper dolls in the rain, choking on vomit or convulsing uncontrollably. Horror held the elf in place, dark eyes wide in shock, as he could hear the breathing slow, and stop, person by person. One by one, until silence held heavy over the small town common, and Taako realized he was screaming.

His throat felt tight, and he forced himself to swallow back down the horror and fear, turning to his partner in this all. Sazed looked just as horrified as Taako felt. Before either of them could speak, Angus started to wail, in the way that only small children who don’t understand why the grown-ups are upset do.

It took too long for them to get out of the town. Sazed had to move the wagon and all out of the town while Taako did his best to soothe the child. They didn’t stop through the night, and it was well past dawn when Taako finally let himself trance. He woke to a sleeping toddler in his arms, a still wagon, and no sign of his supposed partner.

It was in this moment that he realized something more important. He had just killed 40 people, left their bodies in the open, fled, had been abandoned by someone who had been working with him for most of this kid’s life...and Angus himself. The wizard swallowed, staring down. He brushed his hands over the boy’s curls, allowing one soft “fuck” to break into the day’s silence. If someone made the connection between the deaths and him, then it was all over for them both. 

Taako couldn’t do that to family. Not like this. He tucked a loose strand behind the boy’s barely pointed ear, sighing softly. If there was one thing he could do, it was to give Angus a better life. And right now, a better life would be one without Taako in it, one where he could possibly grow up and have a stable life, one with two parents instead of a disaster uncle, with people who would love him just as much as the elf loved his little half-elf nephew.

It was a day’s walk to the nearest city without the wagon, or the old horse that had drawn it. Sazed had taken the animal with him when he ditched Taako and Angus like stale buns in yesterday’s bathwater. But, there was Neverwinter, a city of rich assholes with more money than they had brains. At least, here, Angus could possibly get taken in by someone with the funds to raise a small boy.

Leaving him at the orphanage broke Taako’s heart in a way he couldn’t describe. It was losing his family, once more. It was the final piece connecting whatever he couldn’t remember to the now, to his past. In a way it was freeing...but in that same way, it was the worst thing he could ever do to himself.

But it was the best for Angus.

And that’s what mattered.


	2. Moonlighting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucretia recruits her newest Reclaimers...

Lucretia wasn’t sure what to expect when one of her Regulators came back saying there was a complication. She trusted Killian, as the half-orc woman was skilled, thoughtful, and thorough. So when she returned from Wave Echo Cave with a nervous stance, it worried The Director.

A quick recap explained it. A bunch of adventurers, the loss of Brian (they would have to plan his funeral quietly. She knew he was getting married soon...his poor spouse-to-be.), and worst of all, the utter destruction of the town of Phandalin.

The description made it clear that, yes, they had in fact found the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet. Lucretia had hoped that maybe, just maybe, Lup was around, and would have stopped this from happening...but the glassing, as her friend had called them only a decade ago, meant that the elf wasn’t there. Her heart sank, words spilling automatically from her lips as she gave her speech about lost innocent lives.

Lup would have hated this happening.

“But, uh. Director, they, uh. They...resisted the thrall of the Gauntlet like it was nothing.” That caught Lucretia’s attention once more. She stood from behind her desk, using the Staff to pull herself upright and ignore the creaking in her joints. Very few people could have denied the call of the Relics, and she knew all their names.

“Get them through processing, you have my clearance to bring them aboard.” Killian nodded, and left as she sank back down into her chair. Who could it have been? There was only three of them. Lup? Barry was dead, last she knew...her team would have recognized either of them if they were in their spectral forms, though. That left...Magnus, Merle, and Taako. Taako hadn’t brought a child through all that, would he? 

She must have settled too deeply into her thoughts, as they was the brief warning that the adventurers were arriving. She didn’t need the guards to warn her, though. She felt the tug of the Gauntlet sing through the walls, and she could follow its path to the door.

Lucretia straightened, putting on a carefully sculpted face. She was The Director, after all, and needed to present herself as such.

The three she expected walked through the door, with no smaller fourth in tow. It gave her pause, and she wanted to scream. She wanted to stand, grab Taako by the shoulders and demand to know where Angus was, where his nephew, the only thing any of them still had of Lup and Barry... and then she spied the Umbra Staff in his hand, and her heart broke further.

Taako had no memory of why the little boy she had left him with was so important, nor the meaning of the umbrella hanging from a limp wrist. And it was her fault.

She schooled her expression, carefully walking through all the steps necessary to bring them aboard as part of the team, to bring her family home. They couldn’t remember, but it eased a bit of pain to know she no longer was afraid of what happened to them…

But what had even happened to cause them to lose the happiness she had set up for them all?


	3. The Rockport Limited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where cha'boi, the elven disaster, meets a very familiar looking little boy.

Taako was a performer at heart. Perhaps, that’s why he decided to play up the idiot angle. Maybe he could escape the repercussions of Glamour Springs, but he had never even come across rumors of who could have done it, and when he introduced himself, it didn’t seem to spark a moment of horrified recognition.

Maybe that was for the better.

At least the Bureau wasn’t too bad, even if they needed to learn how to actually cook and not just serve half-frozen, pre-prepared food for every meal. Nothing had the right seasonings or flavors. But he wasn’t going to go in and just teach them. He still couldn’t trust himself and his magic around food he was going to feed to unsuspecting people, and much less to the two idiots who were his best friends. Plus it wasn’t like he got a bonus for trying to teach them.

And there were the perks. LIke this train ride, going to get a Relic. Easy peasy. Wouldn’t have to worry about spell slots, just chilling and pretending to be someone else. Though, maybe it would have been better if he could remember his role properly. What name was he supposed to go by again?

Taako thought that perhaps, as he made up another new name, much to the chagrin of Merle and Magnus, it would have been better if he didn’t know that they were heading towards Neverwinter. He was distracted, wondering how the boy’s life had gone. It had been six years, after all. That was nearly a lifetime ago, at least it felt that way, even if it really wasn’t. Had Angus been adopted yet? Maybe he could adopt him. Would The Director let him raise a child on the moonbase in the time between their missions to retrieve these Grand Relics? But...what if Angus had, in fact, been adopted? What if this little boy had a new family and a happy life?

It left him feeling oddly empty, and destroyed what little focus he had. Shifting his grip on his umbrella, Taako stuttered out a phrase that even made him cringe internally, to try and continue playing the fool. If he had just kept his mouth shut, he wouldn’t have let autoplot take over.

“Good day to you… Thank you for having me on your choo choo.” The elven man (What was his name again? Hudson?) cringed, looking just as uncomfortable as the sorcerer felt.

“Are you disembarking? We haven’t even left the station yet.”

Taako let his eyes unfocus, drawing on the same sloppy grin he knew he wore when he was drunk, tired, and feeling too needy to be alone. The kind of loose, uncaring grin that made conceited men treat him like a fool, the desperate trust him as an outlet, and the lonely find a friend. Too bad he didn’t want any of those, and lashed out just as often. But he had to play it cool. 

If only he could focus on his words as he was saying them. Now he drew harder on that drunken smile, letting it bleed into his words, making his stance just as loose and uncaring. “I need to find a seat that has a comfort...” What? A comfort? That didn’t make sense. “Equitable… to my... situation!” It was awful and terrible, and he could hear Merle and Magnus snickering softly behind him.

Taako fucking hated this. But he just needed to keep it up for now. Just a little longer. Maybe everyone had forgotten about Glamour Springs by now, and it was safe...maybes weren’t certain enough though.

Hudson cleared his throat, edging closer to the door to escape the adventurers. “I appreciate your fancy speech. Um, that is- that is how we, uh--”

“Gratuities to you,” He hated how he sounded when he was drunk. It felt...it felt wrong, and he talked to the air too many times, and it just burned like loneliness that he couldn’t put a name to. “For the compliment.” What compliment was he even talking about? But it didn’t matter. Soon enough, Hudson had hurriedly taken their weapons, leaving Taako armed with this Umbra Staff, and run to the conductor’s car.

He didn’t care about anything else at that point, too wrapped up in worrying. But there was a single person out of the three on this train that caught his eye. Sure, there was the wizard in a ridiculous robe he could spend all day trashing the appearance of if he was in a worse mood. Then there was the woman who had arm muscles bigger than Magnus’. But the third was what grabbed his attention, and Taako felt like the floor had dropped out from under him. His mouth went dry. His stomach twisted into heavy, unwieldy knots. This was...there was no way.  
The elf tried to speak, with only a tiny harsh squawk escaping his throat. He cringed, stepping closer to the small boy dressed all fancy with a feathered cap. The curls, the little freckles, the pointed ears. He had glasses now, too big for his face, but he could grow into them if his prescription didn’t change. The book was thick and heavy, and whatever the contents of it was, the half-elf was entranced by them.

“Angus?” Taako tried again, and the boy looked up.

“Oh, hello sir!” There was a small gap between his front teeth, reminding Taako painfully of someone he couldn’t quite picture in his mind. “Yes, I’m Angus! Are you a--that is, you know me, sir, and I don’t know you, so that was quite rude of me! Hi, I’m Angus McDonald, and I’m a boy detective! Who are you?”

“I. Uh. I’m...I’m Taako.”

“Are you a fan, sir?”

“What? Uh. Maybe. I. Uh.” He swallowed again, feeling dizzy. Was this the little boy who he had to give up. “You’re a detective? Isn’t that a bit young to be doing that sort of work, pumpkin?”

“Oh, no sir!” He chirped the words, almost too excited to have someone interested in actually talking to him. “I help solve crimes and murders all the time!”

“Wh-why? Ango, that’s not safe.” He’d failed at keeping this poor child safe. Failed his own family. No kid should have to be going about solving death and destruction. He should have been playing with other kids, at home safe and sound. “Where are your parents?”

“Um. All due respect sir, I. Um. I-I don’t have any. I’m on my way back to Neverwinter to visit my grandpa!”

“Your...grandpa?” Maybe this wasn’t his Angus. Maybe this was another child, one with the same name that tugged his heart in some weird way with how close he would have looked.

“Oh, yes, sir! I know he isn’t my real grandpa, since I don’t look anything like him, but he’s--he’s real nice, even if he’s a bit cold, and, I know he’s really old and pretty much gonna die any day now…” Angus paused, and Taako could see the little ear twitches of sorrow. Even if this wasn’t the same kid, no child should look at family and know they were close to death. “Anyway, sir, why don’t you tell me why you three are on this train! Since I know your names aren’t what you told Mr. Hudson!”

The elf paused, turning to his companions. This trip just got a whole lot messier.


End file.
